


Is There Anyone Out There? 'Cause It's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe

by carnal_k



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Asphyxiation, Captivity, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Non-Consensual Bondage, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 09:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12603248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnal_k/pseuds/carnal_k
Summary: Shiro is captured by the Galra and floats listlessly in a water tank where he is held prisoner. One day his breathing mask stops working.(Non-Con elements come from being captured. There is no sexual content in this fic.)





	Is There Anyone Out There? 'Cause It's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Just some whump. Cross posted request from my tumblr, @bottomkeef. Title is from Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5.

Shiro has been floating listlessly in this tank for… days? Weeks? He doesn’t even know anymore. He knows he’s stopped fighting. He stopped fighting before they deposited him in the tank, really – weak and exhausted and broken. Now he just floats in the tank, still weak, still exhausted, even more broken. He’s not sure why he’s here. He doesn’t know if they’re testing or experimenting, if they’re just observing, or if they’re preserving him. He’s not aware of much. The water is a neutral temperature, neither hot nor cold, and has allowed him to become fairly numb. Of course, there could be a drug involved that he isn’t aware of or doesn’t remember. He also can’t see outside of the tank very well, with the water irritating his eyes if he ever opens them and his underwater vision being significantly less than stellar. He can make out vague shapes around the tank sometimes, and that’s about all.

Shiro floats for quite some time, largely numb and unaware to what’s going on around him. Until one day, something changes.

The something that changes is the air supply. A big bulky mask sits over the lower half of Shiro’s face, that rests on the bridge of his nose and wraps tightly down under his chin. Straps attach to the mask and buckle tight around the back of his head, creating an airtight seal and holding his mouth closed. Attached to the mask is a tube, that must lead somewhere out of the tank, because it provides oxygen for him to breathe. There are other tubes entering various parts of his body, for fluids and nutrients, keeping him alive and stable. Though the air supply is most noticeable. Especially when it stops working.

He’s not really suddenly aware of the loss of air. It’s more so a gradual realization that it’s getting harder to breathe. Like, a  _lot_ harder. By the time he notices something is really, really wrong, he’s panting heavily, fighting to get even a little bit of air into his lungs. He’s slowly suffocating. And he can’t just take the mask off; even if he could undo the locked buckles, he’d just end up drowning.

His arms feel heavy and weak, his Galra arm complete dead weight hanging off his shoulder. So with all the coordination he can muster, he lifts a heavy fist and knocks it against the glass.

Knocking seems to be the best option to come across the least… confrontational. He’s still too tired to deal with any sort of punishment that could result from uncooperation. So he knocks at the glass, hoping someone outside the tank notices. He opens his heavy eyes and notices the blurry figures standing around the tank. So they’re there at least. If he could just get them to pay attention to him.

He knocks again when they seem to ignore him. Or perhaps they didn’t notice? Maybe he should knock harder.

With all the strength he can muster, he knocks harder. It’s really getting more difficult to breathe. It feels like he’s trying to suck air through a coffee stir, heaving and struggling. He tries not to panic, tries not to hyperventilate. They still haven’t noticed. He knocks again.

He can feel himself becoming more frantic, his knocking turning to pounding on the glass, gasping for air inside his mask that does not exist. He can’t breathe, there is no air to breathe and he’s going to suffocate. He  _has_  to tell them what’s wrong, he has to get out of this tank and get this mask or just  _anything_!

He’s outright beating off he glass now, the fear and panic spiking his adrenaline and making his movements frantic. He thinks he can feel the glass crack under the pressure of his fist, maybe, just maybe– 

Finally the blurry figures shift. And then the next thing he knows the water is being drained from the tank. Thank  _god_  they noticed, he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll last without passing out.

Relief washes over him once the tank is completely drained, but he’s having a hard time standing. His knees are weak, and he slides down the glass, still gasping under his mask.

He waits for the air, hoping they will release the mask from his face, but more so expecting them to just fix whatever is wrong with the air supply to the mask. He waits, ready for the sweet relief of air, but then… It doesn’t come.

Suddenly his arms are yanked up,  spread, and shackled somewhere above him. Next, his ankles are chained down to the bottom of the tank. They… They’re  _restraining_  him,  _fuck_ , he knew he had to be careful not to come off threatening. And now he is stretched tight, unable to move, and  _still_  unable to breathe.

The tank starts filling with water again. No,  _no_ , they can’t put the water back in! He tries to yell through his sealed lips, to make  _any_  noise to let them know. But even if they’d be able to hear him by some miracle, he doesn’t have enough air to make any noise. He tries to thrash, but he’s stretched too tight, he can’t move, and he  _can’t_   _breathe_.

The tank is filled with the water again and he feels like he’s going to die. He pulls as hard as he can on his restraints, he has to try to knock on the glass again, he has to tell them, he  _has_  to get air. He fights and squirms as hard as he can, but it’s just useless wriggling. He’s not even floating anymore, the tension on his chains too taut to offer any slack.

He feel himself losing consciousness, his chest burning, his body growing weaker and weaker. This is it. He’s going to die here. He’s going to die here, strung up in an observation tank, trying to suck in air that just isn’t there.

He thinks there might be some sort of alarm going off outside of the tank. He can vaguely notice some sort of light is flashing behind his closed eyes. He fights them open to try to see outside the tank, and sure enough, there is some sort of light blinking from one of the machines connected to his tank. He doesn’t have much time to think on it before his eyes are drifting shut again.

And then suddenly, there is air. A rush of oxygen flows into his mask and Shiro can’t help but take a huge gulp, so large he chokes on it. His lungs burn for a different reason now, from the deep, rapid breaths causing oxygen to rush into his body. It makes him dizzy.

When Shiro finally catches his breath, he feels like he could cry. So they don’t want him dead, which is a relief, though they still almost killed him unintentionally. Yet they kept him alive. He’s breathing. They saved him. What do they  _want_  from him?

He doesn’t know. He can’t ask, he can’t hear, can barely see, and now he can’t move. They must not want to risk undoing his restraints. He pulls weakly at them again, his shoulders just beginning to ache, but he knows it will get worse as time goes on. How much longer, he doesn’t know. All he knows is now he can breathe. Now it’s  _all_  he can do. 


End file.
